Google is one of the companies that invests serious amounts of money for the development of smartphones, and recently bought a start-up that had a brilliant idea, which will be put into practice. Google bought a British company called Redux, which develops a technology that allows turning smartphone screens into speakers using vibrations emitted by special chips.
The company bought by Google did not have the technology implemented in any smartphone or tablet, but it successfully managed to create products whose screens were transformed into speakers for use. Moreover, by using vibrations, the British company managed to reproduce the sensation of pressing real buttons, something that other companies tried to do in the past, but failed miserably.
The sound reproduced by the screens that implemented the Redux technology is not great, and the feeling of pressing real buttons is not quite the same as the real one, but still the technology is much more advanced than others. Starting from these technologies, the Google company can offer innovations in its products that could increase their sales, just as Apple offered 3D Touch in its phones 2 years ago.
"We can turn the screen into a high quality loudspeaker, eliminating the need for an embedded speaker. When it comes to mobile phones, we are not only saving valuable real estate and creating a waterproof housing, we are eliminating the need for additional speaker holes and most importantly, improving the audio quality."
Google has not given any indication of when it intends to implement this new technology in its products, so it remains to be seen how long it might take until it is transformed into something real. If you were to ask me, I would say that it will take some time until we see products that have screens that can reproduce sounds thanks to vibrations, but the idea itself will be one that will attract the interest of many people.
Redux tech turns the screen into a speaker, and a haptic surface. Trying it out here. The sound is actually coming from the screen. pic.twitter.com/VPAi6TzKk9
— Stan Schroeder (@franticnews) February 28, 2017
